In October 1997 Alig pleaded guilty to manslaughter after killing and dismembering fellow Club Kid Andre "Angel" Melendez in a confrontation over a drug debt in March 1996. He was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison and was released on parole in May 2014.

Early years

Born in South Bend, Indiana, Alig is the second of two sons born to John and Elke Alig. His mother Elke, a native of Bremerhaven, Germany, moved to the United States after marrying John Alig, a computer programmer. Alig's parents divorced when he was four years old.

Alig attended Grissom Middle School and Penn High School where he was a straight A student. He graduated in the top 8% of his class. During his teenage years, Alig was often the subject of bullying on account of his homosexuality. Seeking a less conservative social environment after graduating in 1984, he attended Fordham University in New York City. He studied architecture there before transferring to the Fashion Institute of Technology. There he met the boyfriend of artist Keith Haring who introduced Alig to New York City nightlife. Alig soon dropped out of school and began working at Danceteria as a bus boy.

Plot: Set in the New York club scene of the late 1980's thru the 1990's, a tale which chronicles the rise and fall of club-kid promoter 'Michael Alig' (qv), a party organizer, whose extravagant life was sent spiralling downward when he boasted on television that he had killed his friend, roommate, and drug dealer, Angel Melendez. Originally from Indiana, Alig moved to New York, and came to be an underground legend, known for his excessive drug use and outrageous behavior in the club world. At his peak, he had his own record label, and magazine, and hosted Disco 2000, one of the biggest club nights in New York in the '90s. He was doing a lot of drugs, and as his addiction got worse, his party themes became darker and more twisted. Alig's saga reached its tragic crescendo when he viciously murdered his drug dealer, Angel, by injecting him with Drano and throwing him in the East River. The power he wielded on the club scene made him feel untouchable, so he didn't hestitate to boast of the murder. The press thought it was a publicity stunt--until Angel's body washed ashore.

Quotes:

Michael Alig: You'll love me, I promise.

James: Michael, I hate when you make me say serious things, so I'm only going to say this once: You've gone too far with the drugs.::Michael Alig: Have you looked at yourself?::James: I'm not addicted to drugs, I'm addicted to glamour.

Christina: How do you like my UFO?

Michael Alig: We don't do, we just are!

[to the Club Kids]::Dallas stage hand: Okay, you guys are on stage in five.::James: What do you mean, on stage?::Dallas stage hand: You know - your show.::James: Wait, what show? [stage hand walks off] But we don't do anything!

Michael: 132nd street, and on the double!::Keoki: Are we going very far?::Michael: All the way, I hope...

Michael Alig: [singing] Greetings, citizens. We are living in the age where the pursuit of all values other than money, success, fame and glamour, has either been discredited or destroyed. Money, success, fame, glamour.

Michael: We're like two peas in a pod, you and I, James.::James: I pity the pod.

[after James' phone conversion with Michael, who is in prison]::Interviewer: I can't believe you still talk to him.::James: Well, when was the last time you heard of a pea changing its pod?

James: No, no, no, for the love of God, no. We are not going to start out with Michael Alig's pathetic childhood - "I was molested, wahhh!"

In October 1997 Alig pleaded guilty to manslaughter after killing and dismembering fellow Club Kid Andre "Angel" Melendez in a confrontation over a drug debt in March 1996. He was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison and was released on parole in May 2014.

Early years

Born in South Bend, Indiana, Alig is the second of two sons born to John and Elke Alig. His mother Elke, a native of Bremerhaven, Germany, moved to the United States after marrying John Alig, a computer programmer. Alig's parents divorced when he was four years old.

Alig attended Grissom Middle School and Penn High School where he was a straight A student. He graduated in the top 8% of his class. During his teenage years, Alig was often the subject of bullying on account of his homosexuality. Seeking a less conservative social environment after graduating in 1984, he attended Fordham University in New York City. He studied architecture there before transferring to the Fashion Institute of Technology. There he met the boyfriend of artist Keith Haring who introduced Alig to New York City nightlife. Alig soon dropped out of school and began working at Danceteria as a bus boy.

A recent reversal in fortune has forced “Club Kid Killer”&nbsp;MichaelAlig to spend at least one night sleeping under a bridge ... After exhausting his options on the app, Alig recently found himself walking back to Manhattan from the Bronx when an unexpected confluence of events ended with him spending the night under a bridge ... Page Six left Alig a phone message seeking additional comment on Tuesday....

A couple of years ago, club kid–turned–killer MichaelAlig told me writer-director EricRivas wanted me to play the part of a mad doctor named Hedda Hopper in the third part of the trilogy, which Alig was in as a zombie named God ...MichaelAlig, Lucian Wintrich, and Michael Musto channel the B-movie vibe of “Vamp Bikers.” Courtesy Eric Rivas....

Then Josh—the handsome, manic-depressive D.A. played by Matt Keeslar—delivers a rousing defense of disco. “Disco will never be over,” he says ... . Those who didn’t understand will never understand . ... ... “I had my own kind of moment in the big clubs, going to Club USA and Tunnel and Limelight, and the club-kid thing was very specific—like MichaelAlig and that whole scene ... the thrill-seekers ... ....

In order to take a gander inside the building where, on March 17, 1996, club kids MichaelAlig and Robert "Freeze" Riggs murdered Angel Melendez, I asked the doorman at the Riverbank West to see some real estate listings. It was through this very lobby that Alig and Riggs carried a cardboard box containing the dismembered body parts of Melendez, a purported drug dealer....

Jarett Kobek’s Bildungsroman, set in the vanished art and music scene of the city in the late 20th century, is skilfully narrated. Fiction. The Observer... Spare a thought for the parents ... Baby’s parents suffer the first violent death of many in Kobek’s novel, which ends in the aftermath of the notorious clubland killing of Andre “Angel” Melendez by the club promoter MichaelAlig and Robert Riggs in 1996 ... MichaelAlig ... Read more ... ....

When the fashion world descends on Paris each fall for a week of runway shows, after-parties, and celebrity appearances, the headlines follow ... The controversy began after the well-known American drag queen took to social media the night of Sept ... 3 ... In the late ‘80s, the original cohort of “Club Kids”—an aesthetically experimental group of mostly young, queer personalities, including RuPaul, MichaelAlig, Amanda Lepore, and James St ... ....

He was tossed out, but not before meeting Peter Gatien and MichaelAlig, two names he would find himself tied to for the rest of his life ... The next was MichaelAlig, the world famous Club Kids leader who, also during Gatien's trial, was arrested himself for the drug-fuelled murder and dismemberment of Angel Melendez over an unpaid debt ... MichaelAlig....

Club kid leader turned killer MichaelAlig still tries to shock me when he sees me (or maybe he’s not even trying) ... A sort of BritishMichaelAlig, Alex DeLarge fumes at the center of A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess’s 1962 satire about a barbaric British gang member who’s brainwashed in prison, then thrown back into a world of more violence....

The print edition of the 'Village Voice' will cease ... I was doing my Chicken Little act way back in the ‘90s! ... I still have the print copies of my 1987 cover story, “The Death of Downtown,” about how the Fellini-esque club scene had imploded from too much hype and interference, and also my April ‘96 blind item about the buzz on the grizzly details surrounding the infamous MichaelAlig/Angel Melendez 'club kid' murder ... ....